


Midnight Decisions

by LibertinePast



Category: Cobra Kai (Web Series), Karate Kid (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-11-01 08:16:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17863706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LibertinePast/pseuds/LibertinePast
Summary: From a Tumblr prompt: "The hero shows up at the villain's doorstep one night. They're shivering, bleeding, scared. There's also a slightly dazed look in their eyes--they were drugged. They look like they were assaulted. Looking up at the villain, swaying slightly as they're close to passing out, they mumble '...didn't know where else to go...' then collapse into the villain's arms."





	Midnight Decisions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brihana25](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brihana25/gifts), [TheEmpressAR](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheEmpressAR/gifts).



[ ](https://ibb.co/rQDMzr1)

**May 19, 2018 | 12:02 am**

The freezer truck rumbled to a stop in a junkyard on Victory Boulevard, but the live cargo inside had no idea where they were.

It had been a long time since he’d felt winter on his skin.

Daniel was huddled in the corner of the frozen compartment, close to a small window he couldn’t see out of, but it let in just enough light to keep him from going crazy. The most clear image was his breath clouding in front of him. They didn’t bother to take his phone away—it was dead. He kept running his thumb over the black glass as if to conjure something.

The only thing he’d been able to do to keep warm was roll down his dress shirt sleeves—they’d still been hiked up since the tournament- and tear down the plastic strip curtain in the back of the truck, wrapping it around himself. Of course he’d taken off his jacket at the club, of _course_ he had. He tried to figure out how many hours had passed. The scrappy, thickheaded boy inside him wanted to pound the thick aluminum walls and yell obscenities. The father on his exterior, flushed and already drowsy from wine, was desperate to conserve every drop of energy.

 _They’re not gonna get what they want if they kill you,_ he repeated to himself, but it didn’t stop the gnawing dread of running out of air. Tonight, breathing deeply was miles from the key to life.

[ ](https://ibb.co/8KrTbFy)

 

  
He’d dropped off Robby in North Hills after showing him the little jade house of dreams. He’d gone to the dealership to check on the ailing bonsais that were recovering nicely.

The hopeful note Tournament Day had ended on was fading fast, all the dread and anxiety building in his chest again. So, he went to the bar at Encino Oaks. He chose a peppery Shiraz, as if he needed more heartburn.

It couldn’t have been more perfect for the abductors. They parked the freezer truck next to the kitchen loading dock. They bussed tables as they waited—no one would ever question anyone scraping the dirty plates with “do you really work here?”

Daniel was the last guest at the bar. The portholes in the swinging kitchen doors were fixed on him like eyes. He swirled and sniffed the last of his wine, then chugged it inelegantly. “‘Night, Alphonse,” he said to the bartender.

As he walked by them, the kitchen doors were swung open by a bald, stocky man. “Hey, Mr. LaRusso! I thought it was you. How you doing, I’m a buddy of Louie’s.”

“Oh, nice,” Daniel said, accepting his firm handshake with a pang of guilt that Louie hadn’t told anyone they were on the outs.

“Chef wants to say hi.” He thumbed at the kitchen.

“Ey, good, I got a beef to settle with him. Literally.” Daniel waltzed through the swinging doors like he was the mayor. “Yo, Nick, who told you to go swtichin’ up the prime rib?” he smiled.

The other biker clocked him in the back of the head with a rolling pin. It was a very…Italian way to get knocked out, he would’ve thought, if he’d known what hit him. They carried him out to the loading area and tossed him in back of the truck—a stark white, dime-a-dozen box with fake plates.

* * *

 

They’d confronted Johnny with fire, and him with ice.

He knew it was the bikers. They’d dropped Louie’s name. They’d underestimated the last man they’d fought, and weren’t making the same mistake. They were making sure he was cold and disoriented, blood drained from the extremities that needed to hit their targets with accuracy.

He wondered how long they’d been waiting to strike. Thank God his family was at home, safe. He’d texted Amanda to tell her he was stopping at the dealership, but he forgot what time that was. He was known to disappear for hours when it came to tending the bonsais, anyway. He felt the throbbing in his head branching off further.

All he could think about for a while were the bonsais—they had no trouble with cold temperatures at all. _My roots are too deep to freeze_ , he trembled. His phobia of suffocating was worse, his stomach dropping with each frosty exhalation.

He thought of the kids. All they repeated in his head was “don’t do anything stupid, Dad.”

The freezer trailer door rattled open, startling him to his marrow. He squinted at the bright lights of a junkyard, and the two men. “Enjoy the ride, Fish Stick?” the bald one asked.

“…just…cut the shit and tell me what you want.”

“Oh, that’s easy. A return on investment, or you don’t want to know what’s next.”

“…for lightin’ s-some rustbucket on fire?”

“That’s only the half of it,” the mustached one, who looked like a “Trampus” or something, deadpanned. “This is for the deal that fell through.”

“…oh, yeah…the deal made over boilermakers in Vegas. Sounds legit…”

“It was more than just shooting the shit, asshole. We gave your cousin fifty grand to start our little partnership. He says he gave it to you.”

Louie must’ve blown through their money in a matter of weeks…and thrown him under the bus. He couldn’t believe it. All they probably had to do was clip a hangnail too close to the skin, and Louie squealed like a pig. “…don’t have it.”

“Of course you do. You’re the Auto King.”

“You must be thinkin’ of Tom Cole….”

They closed in on him. Daniel stood up slowly from his huddled position in the corner of the truck, his flappy plastic curtain falling to the floor. He tried to hold back his shivering, which was obvious in the motion of his throat.

“….that guy whose house you almost burnt down…he’s…my friend.” Up until about 24 hours ago, it was the God’s honest truth.

The bikers broke out in high-pitched laughter that was all too familiar to him. “Your friends make you suck a ten-foot dick?” Baldy chuckled. “I guess you won’t be surprised at what your enemies want to do.”

Daniel bit down on his tongue to steady his trembling chin. His stiff hands melted into fists.

“You’re actually gonna fight us looking like Jack Nicholson in a hedge maze? You want to see how much worse it can get?”

“For me or for you?” Daniel said with a dark look.

He wanted to jump-kick the bald biker’s knee—bikers usually had messed up knees. The kick he managed as his body hitched with shivering landed, but not nearly hard enough, and his own knee caved at impact as if it had been swept. The bald biker kicked him in the face when he was down. They laughed as Daniel hit the cold aluminum floor, with a lightning bolt of bloody boot tread marks across his forehead.

As he clutched the gash on his brow, Baldy stepped on his throat just like Mike Barnes had done in Mr. Miyagi’s backyard. _Your karate’s a joke!_ Daniel heard, but even the voices in his memory were being smothered. Daniel hooked his legs around the biker’s other leg and took him down. Struggling to his knees, he ducked under the other guy’s swinging arm, then clenched his own hands together and drum-techniqued him….once, toppling himself over with the effort. Baldy kicked him in the ribs as he let out a despondent cry. There wouldn’t be any more twisting now.

He knew they would beat him within an inch of his life, because he could still make a money transfer with that inch. Nowadays, all you needed was a thumb. The frigidity of the truck wasn’t numbing the blows, only sending shockwaves through them.

They tossed him to the curb with a paper shoved in his shirt pocket, with an email linked to a PayPal account. “Don’t bleed on it, Ninja Boy. You call the cops, we take your little blond suck-buddy for a ride and leave him in here all day.”

He must’ve looked like the doped-up victim of a drug deal gone bad.  Staggering down Victory, he stumbled past an Orange Line bus shelter and heard “Hey, baby, you got any money?”

Somewhere behind him, a billboard of his own smiling face towered above his lurching journey.

He saw Zarcharian’s mini-mall in the distance. It seemed so far away and so close, his vision strobing.

For once, Cobra Kai looked like an oasis.

It didn’t matter if no one was even there—at this hour, probably not. This was where he wanted to curl up and hopefully live. He didn’t want Amanda or the kids to see him like this. He couldn’t go to the police. He only wanted Johnny’s help—even if he found him hours later. He wanted him to say something like “you’re safe now,” even though he wouldn’t, but those flame-blue eyes would transmit it somehow.

By the time he dragged himself past the old school McDonald’s, he could see a light on in the dojo, and his dogged heart leapt, if only weakly.

* * *

 

It had been going on for a while in the dark office; Johnny looking miserably at the All-Valley Trophy, then drinking Jim Beam. Stare, rinse, repeat. It took an embarrassingly long pour of nothing but air for him to realize the bottle was empty.

Whenever he held the trophy in his hand, he felt a twitch in his left knee. If he paced around with it, he limped.

The door chime tingled innocently. “Miguel?” he called out.

Johnny stood in the doorframe of his office, his red Speed King shirt the brightest thing in the room. The shadow in the doorway looked horribly crooked against the horizontal blinds.

“…didn’t know where else to go…” the boyish voice sputtered.

“LaRusso, what the hell…?” Johnny gasped, moving towards him and stumbling up the tiny incline of the mat. As Daniel came into better view, Johnny saw a crane with clipped wings folded his tightly over his torso. Gashes on his face that looked like smashed currants, fresh blood under his nose. Blood spatters that looked purple on the navy dress shirt he was still wearing.

“…john, I think….” he whimpered as he started to sway.

He didn’t need to finish that thought. Johnny, eyes wide, lunged for the free-falling bird with sturdy arms.

* * *

He sank down to his knees with Daniel in his lap. “Oh God,” he whispered, wishing this was all some sort bourbon-induced hallucination. “LaRusso, c’mon, man. LaRusso!” He slapped his face in little hummingbird flaps and a five o’clock shadow prickled his hand. Daniel’s breathing was shallow and fast, and he was freezing cold…and for some reason, he smelled a little like shrimp.

He wasn’t responding at all to “LaRusso.”

Johnny sucked in a hesitant breath. “…daniel….” he winced. “Daniel!”

Sure enough, his eyelids fluttered open. “I’m up,” he mumbled.

“Yeah, barely. Who did you piss off this time? Your wife? I’m not surprised she had it in her.”

He shook his head and shivered a pitiful little laugh, then winced, biting his lip. “….bikers….” he groaned. “...louie owes ‘em money.”

Johnny’s jaw clenched and a bright blue vein flashed across his temple. “I’ll beat them with a bag of nickels, how’s that. It hurts to laugh? You got ribs broken?”

“Me? No, I’m ok…”

“Deep breath, LaRusso.”

He shook his head. “John-“

“Now!”

He did as he was told, his diaphragm dragging the cracked bone along his insides, a wail swelling through his throat.

“That’s what I thought. What else did they do?”

Daniel hadn’t realized how humiliating it would be to admit all this. “….knocked me out…put me in a freezer.”

_“What?”_

“I sti….still feel like I’m in it…”

Johnny jutted his chin, wanting to put his fist through the mirrored wall. “Not good.” He gently set him down on the mat and went in the office, and came back with an old Coors Silver Bullet blanket. He knelt down, cocooning Daniel in it.

“…why do you have a blanket here?”

“I take it everywhere and suck my fucking thumb,” Johnny squinted. “Why do you care? I’m not playing around. Dutch had a skiing accident when we were all up in Tahoe once. Almost froze in a snow drift.”

“…he’s an overconfident jerk, that’s why….”

“You’re the guy who tried to fight like this!” As much as Johnny wanted him to stop talking, at least he was awake.

There was a hipster Cobra Kai student who always wore a knit hat, and he had thankfully left it behind in one of the cubbies on Friday. “Gonna owe this moron a new one,” Johnny sighed, slipping it over Daniel’s blood-tinged hair and feeling a huge lump. “I bet your mama always said back in Jersey that you lose all the heat from your big melon, right?”

“….wait…I don’t wanna get blood on my headband.”

“This isn’t your headband, it’s a douchey hat.” Johnny realized that Daniel was getting confused, and there were many potential reasons. It probably didn’t help his mental clarity to be lying on a karate mat with Johnny taking care of him. “…LaRusso, I….” he said, breathing faster. “I’m done playing your St. Bernard, you need to get to a hospital…Robby, he…” He looked away. “He needs y–”

When Johnny’s eyes returned to him, he was out again. “Hey, dummy, don’t do that. Daniel!” His name wasn’t working this time. As much as Johnny knew this was a bad thing, at least it stopped any resistance. He hoisted him up in his arms like Miguel on Halloween night, only instead of a skeleton, he was a burrito. Or a worm, Johnny thought as he staggered with the heavy load. He didn’t feel like finishing that joke. He carried him out to the Challenger and propped him in the front seat.

He peeled out of the parking lot, the speed of Daniel’s breath becoming alarming in Johnny’s periphery. He tried to keep his eyes on the road. “Louie,” was all Johnny could mutter, as if the name was a curse all its own.

[ ](https://ibb.co/59V4QDw)

 


End file.
